Thursday started with Free-Form Resin Techniques. In the class, Kim O’Neil taught us to make a frame from balsa wood and double-stick tape it to a transparency to make our “mold.” Then, we designed our pictures that we would suspend in the resin. Once our designs were finished, we put them in a toaster oven on 150 degrees for an hour  they are cured by then. Once you remove them, they are ready to have the balsa-wood frame cut from them. If you were to do a thinner layer of resin, you could simply take an X-Acto Knife and cut the resin to the desired shape and size. Drill the holes, and you are ready to put them into your designs!

At 4 p.m., it was like there was a silence air horn that blew and people went running into the Market Place. Programs with the show-floor diagram clutched in hand, favorite vendors circled, wild eyes, and determination to be the first shopper at their booths! If you are a wholesale shopper, remember your State Tax ID Permit, even though on name badges it is designated what kind of shopper you are  wholesale designer, wholesale retailer and so on. Better to be safe than running back to your room to get it. Some even make labels to put on vendor’s forms with all the information, so you don’t have to write it each time you purchase. Time savers are wonderful … gets you through the lines and on to your next bead vendor.

Friday was another class with Susan Lenart Kazmer. If I have not said yet, she is the total bomb at resin work. Along with her current book, she is in the beginning process of writing a resin book, too! We expanded on our resin work and did more metal and resin. She has so much information in her head! I do have to warn you that working with resin is like working at IHOP! It is like working with syrup. But the end result is not a full tummy, it is terrific jewelry that is economical to make and very desirable. Ladies put resin on lifesavers, filmstrips, French linen paper and one lady had pink army men!

As if there has not been enough shopping, like a robot, I went to the Bead Market Place again, not too busy at 5 p.m., terrific time to go. Fewer bead nudgers! Yippieeeee, more room to really look at everything that each booth carries. There are neon bead signs that I am trying to resist. They are so much fun. Bead Queen Parking placards that are darling for shops to put up in the parking lot, we all are the queenies, aren’t we?!

Terrific kits are available from Glass Garden Beads, as well as the most darling bottle caps that they have tapped into a dome, taken two of them and made a bead. Caps made from Orange Crush, 7Up, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi caps and many more from days gone by.

I am on my way back to the Bead Market Place, I will take plenty of pictures today so you can have a good idea of what to expect when you book your ticket!